Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 84 Sea Training
June 11th, cloudy.

A few days ago, under the influence of a cold wave from the north, a freezing rain mixed with light snow hit Shixing Fort and surrounding areas, causing the temperature to drop sharply to around five or six degrees.

The cold wind blows, making people feel a chill all over their bodies.

"Is winter coming?" Liu A Shui, wearing thick winter clothes, followed a team of sailors to board the "Zhengtu" sailboat one by one. Leaning against the side of the ship, looking at the foggy sea, he murmured.

After the autumn harvest was initially completed, more than 30 boat people, including Liu Ashui, were called up to participate in a one-month sea navigation training.

This galleon was originally a merchant ship used for Spanish trans-Pacific trade. After being captured by Shixing Fort two years ago, it has been sealed at the dock and has never been used again. It is only maintained on a regular basis.

After the decision-making committee consulted with all the time travelers and held a solemn collective vote, they finally decided to send two ships for the second trip to the continent in order to bring more production and living supplies and valuable immigrants from the Ming Dynasty.

Time waits not for us!

In other words, immigration is urgent.

Everyone has a strong sense of crisis and an inexplicable sense of historical mission.

In the colonial era, a time of great contention, if we could not accumulate powerful strength in a very short period of time, how could we compete with the European powers on the ocean, how could we open up a broader living space for the Chinese nation, and how could we gain more voice for future generations?

During this period, the Thirty Years' War in Europe had just entered its middle stage. Although the Bohemian stage of the war had come to an end, the European Protestant League and France could not tolerate the revival of the Habsburg Empire during the reign of Charles V, and had initially formed an anti-Habsburg alliance. Denmark was responsible for sending troops, while England and the Netherlands provided material and financial support behind the scenes.

A war of an unprecedented scale has slowly unfolded in Europe, involving more European countries.

This caused European countries to focus more energy and attention on Europe, on the battlefield and diplomatic level between the Protestant League and the Habsburgs, temporarily slowing down their colonial activities in the Americas and other regions.

On the Chinese mainland, although the Ming Dynasty achieved an "unprecedented victory" in the Ningyuan Victory in the sixth year of the Tianqi reign (1626), it did not deal a fatal blow to the Jiannu army entrenched in Liaodong. The threat to the northeastern border remained very serious, which to a large extent drained the Ming Dynasty's energy and financial resources.

At the center of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Tianqi accidentally fell into the water while playing on a boat in the Western Garden on May 18th. Although he was rescued in time and treated by many imperial doctors, he was left with a chronic illness and his health deteriorated.

On the 1627nd day of the eighth month of the seventh year of the Tianqi reign (), Emperor Tianqi passed away in the Qianqing Palace. His younger brother, Prince Xin Zhu Youjian, ascended the throne on the th day of the eighth month, and the reign was named Chongzhen.

At this point, the end of the Ming Dynasty has entered the countdown.

Because, in the first year of Chongzhen (1628), Shaanxi Fugu Wang Jiayin, Hannan Wang Daliang, Ansai Gao Yingxiang and others led tens of thousands of hungry people to revolt, and the whole of Shaanxi responded.

Not long after, Zhang Xianzhong also launched an uprising in Mizhi, Yan'an, and Li Zicheng subsequently joined Gao Yingxiang's army.

The vigorous Shaanxi refugee uprising will soon sweep across the entire north. It cannot be suppressed, and cannot be destroyed. It will last for more than ten years, spanning the entire Chongzhen period, and finally it will spread like wildfire and engulf the glorious Ming Dynasty.

……

So, facing the impending historical storm, what choices should the time travelers make?
Of course, we can’t just sit back and do nothing, let alone respond passively!
Even though it is difficult to change the overall situation due to lack of strength, since we have unexpectedly entered this time and space, we must always try to do something and change something.

If you want to change something, you must have a certain amount of strength.

migrant!

Continue to immigrate!
Moreover, we must spare no effort to increase immigration efforts!
The first group of immigrants from the Ming Dynasty showed incredible obedience to the management and dispatch of Shixing Fort shortly after landing.

Because no one expected that three meals a day, clothes to cover their bodies, a place to live, and the promise of owning land in the future would make these immigrants who had nothing so docile and submissive.

Owning a piece of land of one's own and passing it on to descendants may be the most firm obsession in every immigrant's heart.

Faced with such hardworking, simple and devoted immigrants, what else is there to worry about?
For the second trip to the mainland, we will simply send out two ships to bring back more Ming Dynasty immigrants!

To use two ships, more sailors must be recruited.

Liu Ashui and more than 30 other boat people and more than 30 other new immigrants were recruited onto the ship and began sea training for more than a month with the former naval cadets of the Polang and the Spanish sailors to adapt to the many situations they would face during the voyage.

In reality, the crew and artillery requirements for the training ship "Breaking Waves" and the galleon "Zhengtu" required a total of 150 sailors. However, since there was no need to "hunt" in Spanish America on this voyage, and there was no intention to plunder Spanish merchant ships along the way, neither ship was equipped with a dedicated gunner, thus maximizing manpower conservation and setting the crew at 120.

After all, if two ships were to participate in the immigration, they would have to bring back at least 600 immigrants, which would further cause a shortage of food and other supplies in Shixing Fort. Enough personnel must be left behind to carry out agricultural production and corresponding handicraft manufacturing in the next year.

"Wind direction, north by west!"

"Turn the rigging halyard, control the sail..."

Harvey, the first mate of the "Zhengtu", stood on the deck and shouted at the top of his voice.

"got it……"

"Got it..." The two trainee sailors on the mast replied loudly.

"Assholes! Don't you know to add 'Sir' or 'Sir' when you answer?" Harvey scolded angrily. "Also, when you reply, repeat my orders to confirm whether the instructions you received are accurate!"

"..."

"Yes, Captain Harvey! Turn the rigging sheet!"

"Yes, Captain Harvey! Trim the sail!"

Several trainee sailors on the sail branch hurriedly untied the sail ropes fixed to the mast, and then cooperated with the sailors below to laboriously turn the sail.

"The wind is too weak! Adjust the mainsail to increase the windward surface!"

"Yes, Captain Harvey! Trim the mainsail to the windward!"

"..."

"What a bunch of useless rookies!" Harvey muttered. "With the way they're performing, who knows where they'll end up in the deep ocean!"

"Harvey, don't be anxious. Take your time." Zhengtu's captain, Wei Yingbin, said with a smile, "It's only been a few days. How can they expect to be as skilled as an arm? Be patient. We still have plenty of time for them to adjust."

"Captain..." Harvey hesitated for a moment, then voiced his doubts. "Captain, if we in Shixing Fort are short of manpower, we can march deep into the American continent, seek out and defeat those ignorant and backward Indian tribes, capture them all, and enslave them. This is the most efficient and simplest method for us."

"Of course, if you think those Indians are too stupid, we can also go to New Spain or Peru and plunder coastal villages and towns. We can also capture the residents there and use them as slaves or indentured laborers."

"When we were still weak, crossing the vast Pacific Ocean to recruit immigrants from the Ming Dynasty was both time-consuming and labor-intensive, and it was also extremely expensive. After these immigrants arrived, we would need to provide them with food, clothing, and shelter. We would need to support them for at least two years before they could create wealth for us."

"So, isn't this a bit... a bit of a loss? You know, our current foundation is still very weak. We shouldn't be investing so much and going to such great lengths on immigration right now. Sometimes, even slaves can be used for large-scale development and construction."

"Uh..." Wei Yingbin paused for a moment, then said solemnly, "Harvey, I'm glad you're considering the issue from our collective perspective and offering positive and effective suggestions."

"Regarding the question of whether to migrate or to capture people for slavery, we believe it involves a conflict between long-term and short-term interests. With our current strength, going deep into the interior and plundering the Indians, or going south to the Spanish American colonies and seizing the local residents as slaves, could potentially boost our power in a very short period of time."

"More than a hundred years ago, when the Spanish and Portuguese invaded the American continent, they relied on their powerful military force to conquer the local Indian tribes and turn them into slaves. They then opened up countless plantations and gold and silver mines, which in turn continuously nourished the European mainland and achieved the colonial hegemony of the two countries."

"However, whether it was Spain or Portugal, they colonized the Americas, plundered the local indigenous people, and enslaved them. Their goal was to plunder wealth and reap colonial benefits. For over a hundred years, although they also carried out large-scale development and construction in the Americas, their goal was to more conveniently and effectively implement colonial rule and to obtain a fat dairy cow that could provide nutrients to the natives."

"Their roots were always in Europe, in the Iberian Peninsula. Therefore, they could enslave countless Indians in the Americas, plunder without regard for the cost, and commit massacres one after another with impunity. To them, the Americas were nothing more than a source of wealth."

"But we are different. We need to use Shixing Fort as our foundation, and we need to expand our sphere of influence, including Qiming Island, into the entire Americas. In other words, we need to build and manage this vast land as if it were our homeland. Therefore, we need immigrants, make them free citizens of this land, and turn them into our supporters, so that we can gradually grow our power."

"Slaves cannot do this, and it will also leave behind various hidden dangers and legacy, which will become a huge problem in the future."

(End of this chapter)